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Russia After Putin

The balancing of the clan system has three major flaws. First, it is wholly dependent on Putin’s subordinates to control their own subordinates, and so on, for the system to hold together. Putin therefore has been dependent upon Sechin, Surkov and Medvedev, who in turn have been dependent on their subordinates. One break in the chain can therefore have serious consequences. This absolute hierarchy begins to fray if one individual fails. There has been constant reshuffling at the lower levels while the hierarchy at the top has remained mostly the same until recently, even if their performance has been poor.

The second issue is that a vertically arranged system cannot handle change coming from outside the system. The vertical system finds it difficult to adapt to fundamental shifts in Russia or global events that affect Russia.

The third issue is that the hierarchal clan system heavily relies on the person at the apex. Putin, who has interests in both, is the ultimate arbiter among the clans. He once sought to step back from the presidency and allow the clans to try to continue under a new leadership. The year he left the presidency, 2008, saw Russia the strongest it had been in decades. It was enjoying the benefit of high oil prices, a strengthened military, a unified political system and a dominant energy position in Europe. Putin chose then-Gazprom Chairman Dmitri Medvedev to succeed him as president. Putin chose a civiliki because the siloviki are the stronger group and because Russia was flirting with the idea of opening up to foreign investment. Having a liberal reformer as president, the thinking went, could help rehabilitate Russia’s reputation.

After Putin’s departure, however, the cracks in the hierarchal system turned into gaping fissures in 2008-2009. Medvedev and the civiliki split over how to handle the global financial crisis, giving the siloviki a chance to grow in power. Putin ultimately had to step back in to restabilize the system, first behind the scenes in 2009 to make sweeping financial decisions and then publicly in 2012 as president. But by then, even more dangerous and larger fundamental shifts inside Russia started to emerge — shifts that threatened not just the system Putin had built, but the country itself.

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